Last December Kate and I “adopted” a cat. I say that in quotes because last night we discussed that, if we were to move away from the city, would we take Gypsy with us. Kate is an absolute “yes”. For me, I’m not so sure. Gypsy is an indoor-outdoor feline. She comes in when she wants to. She leaves when she can. Who knows, maybe she has a cat family out in the world.

She only became ours because during the sub-freezing temperatures of last winter when we brought her into our warm home as a kitten no bigger than our hand. We fed her outside and inside every morning and every night. She grew accustomed to the nourishment and expects for it to continue. It’s a functioning addiction for the both of us.

When she needs to or if she wants to she can fight outside, hunt, and live in the wild. Is she really ours if she still has options? Does she even understand she has those options? She, after all, just ate from my hand this morning. Am I really an owner if she has the ability to walk away?

I rarely write overtly political statuses, but I’ve come to reevaluate that stance more and more. The correlation between Gypsy the cat and Americans may seem like a long line, but I notice it. As Americans we crave convenience. We want to be heard, to be safe, to be taken care of. We have expected our political system to do that for us our entire lives. We have become domesticated on the dependency of the state. Through domestication we have distanced ourselves from the ability to fight, to hunt, to live in the wild.

Wired: Us, collectively, need to stop massively subsidizing feed corn that drives the price of beef so low that a BigMac is the cheapest calorie in the history of our species.”

The three things that hit me about this was:

That yes, this is correct. Our political system has equated legal framework with what is correct and righteous even though laws can and do get overturned when they become outdated, not useful, and recognized as immoral.

We continue to distance ourselves from the source of products we seek.

I’m like most other people: I’m tired. Tired of feeling like everything is for a lost cause. That even if I put in the work we, as a planet, as a community, as a species will not get anywhere. Not because my efforts have no meaning, but because without the movement of a collective there is no movement forward.

Americans are fiercely independent, but we have grown complacent. We believe our politicians already in office will listen to our call and vote accordingly. We have a great thing going on here in our country, but at times even best laid intentions are misguided, overtraining leads to injuries and fatigue, or really whatever metaphor you want to use. The bottom line is we are at a crossroads.

Tuesday, November 6th is paramount in the survival of our country, of our place in the world, and of the planet itself. We already know about the need for help with climate change, job security, healthcare, etc., but those words are rocket fuel for unfettered arguments between people who ultimately, at the end of the day, might actually agree on issues. If they could ever listen instead of being heard.

As Gypsy is accustomed to being provided a warm place to sleep and consistent food she is also capable of seeking out other providers of such means. We provide those things because we love her and want her around. If we were to stop providing them she ultimately would leave. It’s about time as a voting public we practice our rights to find our necessities elsewhere. Other people can - and want to - provide what we seek. We don’t need to waste our energy trying to convince those already comfortable in their homes to let us in.

We need to decouple economic growth from degradation of nature. - Mark Rounsevell

Yet how hard is it to decouple those two? Everything follows the path of least resistance. As governments remain unstable, jobs are insecure, wages don’t keep up with inflation, and low socioeconomic people see opportunity based on the desires of others, what do they do to survive…well the answer is simple. Why would a poor Latin American farm not utilize the abundance before him/her if consumers detached from their plight demand lower cost on food, lumber, medicine, drugs, etc.?

My professional dream is to relay important information such as this to people who may not know enough yet, or may not know what even to ask yet. The best way for education is through entertainment and I hope to do that in a positive and uplifting manner. Writing this little post, however, shows me how quickly the tone of a such an article can lead to an impassioned plea instead of humor. I want to make this light-hearted but this is deadly serious. Not only for biodiversity and animals and nature, but for the human species, our governments, and our future.

It will take fundamental change in how we live as individuals, communities and corporations. We keep making choices to borrow from the future to live well today. We need a different way of thinking about economics with a higher accountability of the costs in the future to the benefits we take today. - Jake Rice

Nature, humanity, and health - and caring about those things - are not a political stance. They supports our life and how we were made. If you believe in science you believe that we evolved in ordered to get here and coexist. If you believe in religion than you believe that your creator made ALL of this life. If you believe in neither of those things I honestly don’t know how you spend your time.

As Americans it’s time we stand up as a collective and fight for our independence and find the people who will support us.

It is no longer a time to practice peace but to make it.

Our money is being taken to make less nutritious food that makes us sick so that we spend money to get better. I’m frankly tired of losing money. It’s not spending money anymore…it’s losing it to our politicians, to companies, and to other individuals who will destroy what they see as “lesser creatures” until they themselves expire.

It’s time we fight, we hunt, we live in the wild and seek what we are truly looking for and where it is provided.

“We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet and the last one that can do anything about it.” says Tanya Steele, chief executive at the WWF. Use this mentality for whatever cause you believe in. We are the humans that need to be warriors. We are the warriors who have found our fighting ground. We are the at the fighting ground of the polls with voices that mean something.